Because the weather was supposed to be a bit dodgy today I decided it was a gallery day. I had two lined up that I'd like to visit. 

First off was Tate Modern which is only about 10min walk from the hotel. I've been a number of times before but not since the new extension was finished. I left the hotel around 10:30am. Since it was so close I decided to travel without bags or camera. I'm not a big fan of taking hi-res photos in a gallery and it was quite liberating to travel so lightly for a change. 

In the end I spent nearly 5 hours in the gallery and didn't make it to my second choice. But that's in no way a complaint.

I took this shot of a work in one of the free collections. It contained intricate mirrors that distorted and combined images from different sides of the cube.  Quite freaky.

I really enjoyed my time at the gallery and there were 2 highlights.

First was an exhibition of works by Wolfgang Tillmans. He is known for his photographs of everyday life and contemporary culture and for his pioneering method of displaying prints as whole-room installations. 

But the standout for me was a work by Janet Cardiff.  The following blurb and cheeky shots explain the premise better than I could.

Aside from the beauty of the piece itself, you had the added experience of being able to walk around and as you pass a speaker you could clearly hear just that person's voice. It's if you were able to weave in and out and in between the members of choir getting right up close. In that way it was incredibly intimate and personal. And as singers came in and out with their parts you might be startled when a voice suddenly booms from the speaker next to you. They even recorded the chit chat from the singers before the performance began which again added to the intimacy. I found the who experience very emotional and I listened to the entire performance at the start of my visit and again before I left.  I did feel a little sorry for the people who chose just to listen in the middle. Although they got an awesome surround sound experience, they would have missed the close up experience.

At the very end of my visit I decided to pop up to the 10th floor where there is an observation deck. As soon as the lift doors opened I realised I wanted my camera. The deck gives you a fantastic 360 view of the city at city level. Why did I not know about this? As the gallery would still be open for two more hours I decided to go back to the hotel and get my camera.  

I finished up taking a series of shots I hope I will be able to stitch into some type of panorama.  Here's just one.

The building itself was interesting too and I took a few shots of the interior. 

I had some dinner on the way back to the hotel as well as taking a few pictures along the Thames. At river level the Millennium Bridge looked a bit like a conveyor belt feeding people into St Paul's.

I might try some night time street photography tonight if the weather holds out. If not, I have two more nights to go and the weather is forecast to improve. 

Completely unrelated, I noticed this when looking out of my room this morning. Can't get much closer to the rail line than that. 

Yesterday it was MOMA. Today it was the Guggenheim. I got myself ready by 10:00 and headed out. Once again I decided to leave my big camera at the hotel. It was grey, I was going to an art gallery, and I still had my iPhone in case of photographic emergency!

The Guggenheim is quite a way uptown so I knew I'd have to use the subway at least part of the way. But it occurred to me that I hadn't really walked uptown along 8th Avenue from my hotel yet. I resolved to walk a little way. I'm really glad I did. I popped into the Chelsea Markets just to suss them out. I found a great little book shop I will go back to. Further along I found a great silver building I'll come back to photograph when the light is better. 

I caught the E line followed by the 6 line to get me close to the museum and walked the rest of the way. 

I knew the building was distinctive, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, but I wasn't quite prepared for how it stood out from the surroundings.  

Inside was just as spectacular with floors slowly spiralling upwards. Brilliant for an art gallery because it meant you could essentially keep walking forward without the inconvenience of stairs or escalators to move up and down. 

The primary exhibition was Zero: Countdown to Tomorrow, 1950s-60s. Wow! It was fantastic. I think I enjoyed it even more than MoMA. And I discovered some new (for me) artists I really liked; Heinz Mack and Jesus Rafael Soto in particular. The museum had an app that I'd already downloaded which was great to use both as a guide and also a way of "bookmarking" the works I liked for later reference.

There was an experimental film piece to called The Morning Time Dissapeared by Wang Jianwei. Very trippy, but I liked it. Made a bit more sense once I'd read a little about it.

I spent probably 3 hours in the museum slowly winding my way up then unwinding my way down again. Then it was back onto the subway and back to the hotel.  One of the stations was the closest I've found in feel to the London Underground so far in that there was a long escalator down. Most of the other stations I've used have been barely below street level.

It's Halloween today. I saw a smattering of people wearing costume or references. I assume there will be more later on. The Chelsea Markets were decked out with displays that I'll try to photo later, but I snapped this store with an abundant array of pumpkins out front. I've seem so many like this. 

This evening there is a Halloween parade along 6th Avenue. Weather permitting, I'm planning on going to check it out.

Today's plan was to visit the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Because it was such a clear day I figured it would also be good for some building photography so I headed to the financial district first. There is a lot of architecture there I hadn't seen yet. Also, there is a Museum of Skyscrapers I wanted to visit.

I made my way on the subway and headed straight for the Museum of Skyscrapers. Wrong! I discovered it doesn't open until noon. I was going to skip it and head straight for MOMA but before I knew it there were interesting subjects to be photographed all around me and I stayed in the area instead. I had loose plans to find something to eat too but kept on getting distracted.

I took many shots that I might play with but won't bother posting here. But I did catch this one at a rare moment of being surrounded by glass buildings.

And of course, I walked past the stock exchange in Wall Street. 

What surprised me about the area is that a lot of the skyscrapers are older. In one particular area the streets were very narrow and the brick and concrete buildings around me tall and dark. Not shiny at all. It felt particularly cold and souless. Maybe appropriate for a financial district?

And the white brickwork on the side of this building intrigued me. It appeared to be a prominent building, yet the white bricks appear to be random and unintentional. Odd.

Around noon I made my way back to the Museum of Skyscrapers. It was very interesting, though not much I hadn't already learned. I'd hoped there'd be something in the bookshop. And there was, just nothing that wowed me. I need to think about my luggage weight coming home and purchase sparingly. 

After that museum I found the right subway station to take me back to the hotel. At one stage I noticed a gantry on the side of One World Trade Centre. Window cleaning? You can keep that job thanks. 

I decided not to take my camera to MoMA; to travel I little more lightly. And I'm not all that interested in photographing artworks. Others have done that for me, and better. It felt funny walking sans camera though. It's one of the few times I've done it this trip. But kind of liberating too. 

MoMA was amazing! So much to see and so well organised. You could wander most floors without having to backtrack at all. Floors 2-4 were my favourites; photography, design, drawings, painting and sculpture 1940-1980. Too many individual items to mention. If I have time I'm thinking of going back again. I'm sure I'll get something different from it. Besides, by this time I was feeling a little light headed because I still hadn't gotten around to finding some food. Too much to do. Consequently, my concentration wasn't what it usually is.

After all that it was nearly 5:00. I finally grabbed a snack. It was my intention to take the subway back to the hotel but peak hour pedestrian traffic made everything more difficult. By the time I found the station I was nearly half way back and I figured the subway would be manic. I walked instead. My feet are hating me right now! 

Early this morning there was thunder, lightning and heavy rain. My first in a while. I didn't finish up going out last night and this morning I'm glad. I've been feeling off colour for a couple of days and this morning it was a struggle to get up. It would have been a lot worse with a hangover! But I did eventually arise and my first mission was to do a loop of a different part of the city and end at a photographic gallery called FOAM. Before leaving I wanted to take a picture of out the window of my apartment into the cute back gardens of the adjoining buildings.

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On my journey I came across a massive tulip bulb market.

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The stalls stretched all the way down one of the canals.

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From there I made it to one of the larger canals (you guessed it ... more canal pictures).

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I made it to the FOAM gallery which appears to be connected to the FOAM photographic magazine.

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There were a number of really fantastic exhibitions that I really enjoyed. One was of a series of large format images of quite mundane corners and edges of tacky interiors but the detail and colour palettes was brilliant. Plus my ticket got me entry to the David Bowie by Duffy exhibition that I wanted to see but missed in London due to timing.

After that I headed back to the apartment to regroup. My plan was just to wander a bit more in the afternoon and so I headed in a new direction. Before long I reached this impressive building.

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It is the Rijksmuseum which is the premier art museum of the Netherlands but mainly 15-19th century. Not something I'm all that into. Anyway I wandered the grounds and came across this.

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Then I noticed the reflection of some buildings in the roof of a modern structure and stopped to try and capture it (not very well).

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Only then did I realize this modern structure was the Stedelijk Museum which had been on my to-see list. It's the permanent home of the national museum of modern art - much more my thing. So I stopped to wander around and it was AMAZING! There were some breathtaking photos, pictures and sculptures. In fact I found it far more inspiring than my visit to Tate Modern had been. So glad I stumbled into it.

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It's been a big weekend, so I'm a little behind in my posts. I'll catch up again soon. Saturday I decided to visit the Tate Modern to see what was on. Aside from the exhibits it's a really great space to visit and was another opportunity to soak up the London skyline.

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In the evening was Unsound London Night 3 at a small club near Elephant and Castle under the overhead railroad tracks. It was an early start for this type of venue and very "intimate". The first artist played mainly atonal noise soundscapes which weren't really my thing but were interesting to watch.

Robert Piotrowicz

Next up we're the Durian Brothers. By this time the venue was getting packed ... a little too packed for my liking, but I guess that's London. They were quite a contrast after the previous artist with their rolling rhythm and occasional melodic riffs. I really enjoyed them.

Durian Brothers

Last was the band I was most interested in seeing Forest Swords. Their music was something different again mixing great soundscapes, sometimes etherial and sometimes heavy, and even throwing the occasional dub step beats in.

Forest Swords

There was an after party at the same venue but I suspect the music would have been quite hard and I decided I was in the mood for something a bit lighter so I made my way to Vauxhall to "gay" things up a bit. I was intending to check out a bar I planned to visit Sunday but it had started to rain so I popped into the closest bar, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, instead. Once again, it was a packed venue, more than any I can remember visiting. But the crowd were very friendly and clearly having a great night. There was a bit of a floorshow happening at the time which was quite a laugh. A bit of a quiz show with three contestants on the stage competing with the audience. Last question was a blindfolded cake taste test ... how English.

Once the music started it was a bit of an eclectic mix but fun. Every now and then they played a crowd favourite ... with just about the whole place singing along! It was a great night. Lot's of fun and not like anything I've experienced in a long time.